A major artisan of the renaissance in French music in the second half of the 19th century, alongside his elder colleague Berlioz, whom he admired, and his followers Bizet, Saint-Saëns, and Massenet, who were inspired by his faith in Art, Charles Gounod (1818-1893), a mystic and a charmer, a romantic in search of a new classicism, owed his fame to a few masterpieces, which have overshadowed his daring. A flourishing discography allows us to discover the diversity of his music: instrumental, vocal, religious, and lyrical.

History of Labels: Naïve Classique

Naïve Classique: a mighty river and its tributaries

Jordi Savall: Music, life and recording

It was a rainy October night in the Bugey. On October nights, it's always raining in the Bugey. It was around midnight. There were fifty of us, waiting in the cold, the wet and the rapt silence at the Ambronay Festival. All of a sudden, and without a sound, Jordi Savall was there, sopping wet in a white raincoat, like Bogart in Casablanca, holding onto a hard case shaped like a human body. Moving slowly, he drew out not a person but a viola de gamba, which he started tuning and stringing with the greatest care. And then the miracle descended upon the auditorium.